


The Wastelands of Today

by Emery



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, F/M, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, canonverse, in which jean joined the military police instead of the survey corps
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2014-11-08
Packaged: 2018-02-24 15:32:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2586614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emery/pseuds/Emery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I made a decision fifteen years ago, after the reclamation of Trost and after I found Marco Bodt crumpled against a wall. It's not a decision I'm happy with. Hell, I hate myself, but that's life as a captain of the military police, right? I moved on.</p><p>At least, I thought I did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wastelands of Today

**Author's Note:**

> Em here, with my first attempt at first person in a long, _long_ time. 
> 
> If you're inclined to blog about this fic, sketch some doodles, ramble about some theories, or just sob into oblivion like I did while writing and editing, I'm tracking the tags **"fic: wastelands of today"** and **"fic: wot"** on Tumblr! ([my Tumblr](http://emeryylee.tumblr.com))
> 
> Alternatively, if you're more about the Twitter scene, tag me and let me know you're reading so I can gush at you about how grateful I am. ([my Twitter](http://twitter.com/emeryylee))
> 
>  **Chapter Warnings:** graphic depictions of vomiting and gore, lots of corpses, some sexual content, Jean drinks a little too much alcohol and has a smoke

The tail end of my long coat whips around my calves with the wind that's blowing too hard. There's a storm coming—I see the beginning whirls and wisps of ominous grey treading across the sky before I begin my descent to a place where the rain won't matter. It's pathetic down here. Disgusting. And really, really goddamn cold. I cross my arms tighter across my chest, which only makes the wood and metal of the pistols in my side holsters dig painfully into my ribs. I don't want to be here. This isn't the kind of life I signed up for.

None of this is what I wanted.

I had my years of fame and grandeur, feigned safety and extra rations, but then everything went to shit and I found out that the whole world was a hell of a lot sicker than it seemed. I was naive. Fucking idiotic.

I would have done better to have joined the Survey Corps.

At least then I would probably be dead.

Some whore calls to me from a dark side alley and I barely shoot her a passing glance. No doubt the bitch makes her living off of letting depraved members of the military fuck her senseless every night. She probably eats better than most of the people in this shithole. My heart is so cold by now that I can't even bring myself to feel sorry for them; or maybe it's that, deep down, I know I'm not any better off than the thieves living in the Underground City.

None of us are.

"Kirschtein."

"What?" Even I'm surprised by the tonelessness of my voice.

My partner holds out his hand expectantly, and it takes a few seconds for my thoughts to overcome the thick smell of piss and gather towards remembrance in my brain. I tug the little pouch of gold coins from my pocket and drop it carelessly in his hand, and his fingers curl around it with the greediness of the starved child to my right who's sinking his teeth into a loaf of bread that looks more like a moldy brick than anything edible. I think for the thousandth time that I hate this place.

Not even bothering to take a look around to make sure no one sees me—of course _everyone_ sees me; I'm wearing the insignia of the military police on my back, my chest, my shoulders—I slip through the door into darkness and a wall of stench.

Even if I had expected it, I couldn't have lifted my scarf to cover my face quickly enough. How the hell is no one else bothered by this? I feel like I'm going to throw up, and I do a little, retching somewhere to the side and spitting the remnants of bile in my mouth onto the packed dirt floor. The vomit won't be noticed. Not here. Sustenance for the rats. The thought makes me heave again.

Mindlessly, I follow my comrade deeper into the building, through another door, down a hallway, and soon the overwhelming scent of rot and decay gives way to something more _chemically_ pungent.

"Late, you bastards."

"We have more important work to be doing than catering to your sick little show. Where are they?" I’m glad my partner speaks, because I’m pretty sure I’ve been rendered speechless for awhile now.

A short man emerges from some doorway I didn't notice in this dark, literally shitty maze, and I can't even be bothered to note what his face looks like because I'm way too busy taking in the color of his coat. It's revolting, but I think it used to be white. Now, it's brown, green, some color that's too visceral and putrid to wrap my mind around; but his hands are covered in red. Bright, glistening crimson.

"There's four, assuming you can carry two each."

Two _each_? Already I questioned my ability to carry _one_. Even in my peak condition, I was never close to strong or well-built, and the military police certainly aren't sticklers for staying in shape. My body—slender-waisted, long, and lithe— has always been more suited to work with the 3DMG. I fear breaking my back or making a fool of myself (probably both). This is impossible.

"Three children and an infant."

"We'll take them."

I hear the jingle of the coins in the leather pouch when it transfers hands, and then the man with the used-to-be-white coat leads us back towards the front (I only figure that out because the smell of rotting bodies settles deep into my head again) of whatever the fuck this establishment is supposed to be. Some might call it a morgue, but there is no way I can make myself imagine it as such. I have a feeling it's a good bit more like the bowels of a Titan, more like _hell_ than any morgue or medical establishment should ever be.

Wrapped in burlap on the floor, not too far from the fresh puddle of what was once my lunch, are the four parcels the mortician indicated. He gestures to them like he's shooing away a bothersome animal, empties the coins into his bloody hands, and counts. My eyes have adjusted well enough to the dark by now that I watch the slick blood on his fingers coat each of the coins in smeared fingerprints, and then there's a tiny bundle being tossed into my arms.

"They're fresh.”

"Good."

"So I need extra," the mortician demands, but my partner says nothing. I sure as hell know well enough to keep my mouth shut. It's a lesson I learned the hard way.

"Fuck off," my partner replies, and effortlessly slings two of the sacks over his shoulders, holding them by what I presume to be the feet.

I somehow scoop up the remaining ones despite my sweating palms. It's been a long time since I've held a baby. I'm not sure this counts. This one doesn't cry, doesn't squirm, doesn't smile or laugh. It's cold and too stiff for comfort. The burlap is slimy, and I'm fucking glad for the leather gloves and long sleeves protecting myself from touching anything unseemly.

As much as I hate my job now, as disillusioned as I am, I want out of this condemned circle of hell and back up where I can see the sky, feel the freezing rain pelt my cheeks in a million tiny, punishing blows. When we do finally ascend to the surface, back within a slightly more favorable circle of hell that is known fondly as Wall Sina, I know that I am deserving of every sharp, icy droplet against my face.

No one questions our baggage as we trudge through the streets and slosh up the muddy gunk of puddles with our boots. No one questions anything I do anymore—not since I joined the military police, but especially not now. Unless it is one of my superiors, I will never be questioned again. People fear for their lives.

Even though the corpses are small, they seem too heavy when the rain settles into the fabric of their wrappings and makes my trenchcoat even heavier on my shoulders. As if the metaphorical guilt isn't enough, there's this, too. It's too much.

I don't think twice about wiping my filthy boots in the grass before I trudge onto the gleaming tile decorating the floor of the headquarters, nor do I give a second thought to tossing the smaller of my two burdens into Hitch's arms when she greets us at the top of the stairs leading down into the basement.

"Disgusting," she sneers. I'm honestly not sure if she's talking about me or the dead baby I tossed into her arms. Whatever sludge was growing on the burlap smears against her clean, white shirt.

"Get a bit dirty like the rest of us," I mumble. I'm halfway down the stairs, and I realize that the command has a double meaning. We're all dirty, though. Guilty and caked in the gore of innocents and the darkness of our sins.

When I heft the weight of the child and adjust my grip so that I'm holding the body in both my arms, one beneath its shoulders and the other beneath knees that bend only slightly in post-mortem stillness, I find myself missing my mother. I don't even know if she's alive. Trost is almost as much of a desolated shitstain as the underground city I just returned from. I would almost rather her live there than on the wall's perimeters.

Who am I kidding?

That mode of thinking is so outdated.

Since when have I _really_ believed that the inner walls are any safer than the borderlands? That was only a fantasy of my teenage years, a way to make myself seem better than I was and to erase the self-loathing that still creeps around my gut and twists with every breath I take. At least back then I didn't know any better. Now, I don't have any excuse for the way I am.

"You roll in shit while you were down there?" Hitch asks.

We reach the bottom of the stairs.

"Might as well have."

Pale curls bouncing on her cheeks, she lifts herself on her toes to reach my height and tries to press her lips against my mouth even while we cradle death in our arms. I open my mouth in protest, but before I can turn my head to avoid her advance she wrinkles her nose and pretends to gag.

My breath probably reeks of bile, but I'm glad for it.

I'm even less in the mood for kissing than I am for learning the routes of the basement beneath headquarters. It's not a place I've ever been allowed, but with my most recent promotion, it's soon to become my home. I'm not sure how I feel about that yet, but I don't think it's good.

"Couldn't handle it down there?" Hitch teases me as she leads the way. The man who accompanied me to the Underground follows somewhere behind us still lugging two children on his shoulders like turkeys. I can't remember his name. I really don't give a rat's ass, either.

I don't answer Hitch’s question. She is smart. She already knows.

"Toughen up, Jean."

"Don't talk shit."

"Maybe I will when you stop smelling like it."

How can this bitch speak to me like that and even pretend to have feelings for me? She probably doesn't, I remind myself. Feelings aren't something that a lot of people around here seem to have. She probably just wants my dick in her mouth. I really don't know if I want the same.

"You know where you're going?"

She nods. My arms are tired.

Every time I pass a torch mounted on the wall, I lose myself for a moment in the flame, let it consume me and imagine the little flicks of red-hot ash that rose in the air above the funeral pyre that night, the tiny fragment that fell into the palm of my hand like it belonged there—a piece of bone I still keep in a box in the drawer beside my bed.

I'm a pretty sick fuck, not just because I'm paying for dead bodies like they're a commodity.

It's really ironic, I think, that corpses are so valuable in a world like this. Then again, every soldier that dies in the Survey Corps is at least a mile from the outermost wall, and even if the officers could be bothered to gather the dead and bring them home, what's left but bits and pieces? Even here, in a world ruled by monsters that have eaten my future alive, it is hard to find bodies.

I still don't know why the government needs them. I'm not sure if I want to.

The hallway begins a downward slope. It's better than more stairs. My feet are so unsteady by now that I'm not sure I could make it down another flight without falling on my ass, but I have a feeling that we've got another fifty feet underground or so to go before we reach our destination. In a way, I feel like I'm bringing the corpse in my arms to burial, and myself along with it.

I might as well be dead, anyways.

Here lies Jean Kirschtein, Central Military Police, cadet.

It's weird to think of myself as a cadet again when only a week ago I was a police captain.

New assignment, new headquarters, new commanders, new rules.

New title.

Back to the beginning like a sniveling kid fresh out of training. At least I was more alive back then, and not entirely alone.

"Almost there," Hitch announces—goddamn finally.

There are doors now, built into the stone walls on either side, and the torches on the walls repeat with more frequency. More light with which to view the sins of mankind.

When Hitch makes a left turn, it means we're getting somewhere, but I didn't want _more_ bodies, dammit. So this is where they all go. Some lay on the floor in heaps—in one corner is a pile of bloodied and discarded limbs that the flies have somehow left alone for now. That chemical smell of embalmment returns, but this is much, much different than the morgue in the Underground. This smell is cleaner, intentional; and despite the lumps of gore and flesh on the ground, the mess is restricted to one corner and one corner only. The rest of the room, despite the pile of bodies, is pristine. The heels of my boots click against smooth stone, and I follow Hitch and the other guy's lead to dump our load, wrappings and all, near the pile waiting to be housed on some examination table. I'm glad that they don't remove the filthy cloth and linen ties from around the corpses. I'm not ready to see what the thing I've been carrying looks like.

I'm not a fan of children.

Especially not dead children.

"The hell is this place?" I ask dryly.

Hitch purses her lips and looks like she's glad I asked.

"You been down here before?" I prod, and she nods in the affirmative. She tries to hide it, but I can see in her eyes that she's just as disturbed by all of this as I am. She just does a hell of a lot better at hiding it than me.

She grabs my hand (apparently she no longer cares about how gross I am, still sopping and reeking of excrement) and urges me forward with a glint in her smile that doesn't match the rest of her lifeless expression.

I can tell now that she's not excited for what she's about to show me, but rather that she's excited to have another unfortunate human to share the horrors with. She doesn't want to be alone. If I'm honest with myself, I don't want to be, either.

The footsteps of my accomplice for the day stomp loud and clear until they're little more than an echo, and then it's just Hitch and me. Normally, that would make me uncomfortable; but, like her, there's no way in hell I want to be alone down here.

"Who knew, right?" she asks as she leads me on.

My hand is still in hers, but I make no move to withdraw it.

"Yeah. Right. What do they do with all of them?"

She shakes her head either because she's not sure or because she doesn't want to speak the answer aloud.

Through another door, further into the depths of the headquarters I am led. We see others, now, and a couple nod at us but say nothing more. Most don't acknowledge our existence at all, and I have no idea whether it's because we're new cadets not worthy of their fish-eyed gaze or because they really are so dead inside that they don't even recognize living, breathing beings. Many of them wear aprons and gloves that reach up towards their elbows. Some are clean, others are not.

Haunting, echoing screams curl around and twist into my ear canals. I look at Hitch to see if the sounds are a figment of my imagination. The look she wears on her face indicates that they're not.

"New recruits on tour, huh?"

A woman's voice speaks, and I jerk around to find its source. My hand slips from Hitch's—not a difficult feat when my palms are as slick with sweat as they are.

She stands taller than Hitch, but shorter than me; and she, too, is protected by an apron that hangs nearly to the floor.

Hitch jerks her thumb in my direction. "Delivered some goods, ma'am."

I stand at attention as is instinct by now, my back straight, feet apart, and fist held over my heart beating too fast. The woman laughs at me and turns away, shaking her head.

"Too jumpy for your own good."

Hitch elbows me in the ribs and I drop the salute. Better safe than sorry, right? Fuck, I hate this. I'm a soldier, a member of the military police, not whatever these people are.

"Follow if you want," she invites. "You, of course, know the consequences for speaking of what you see down here."

I know the consequences, all right. We were shown quite clearly—my stomach turns at the memory.

I'm trapped now. Even if I were to decide that I didn't want to see this, what choice would I have but to continue deeper into the labyrinth? Exploring the lands outside the walls would have been better than this.

Hitch grabs my hand again when we walk down an aisle between two rows of examination tables. A person (or something that used to be a person) lays atop each one, either covered by a sheet or exposed to the chilled air. The two of us, hand in hand, walk down this aisle that resonates of doom and our fate—it's like a wedding appropriate for our promotion.

Mom was never married. I don't think I want to be, either.

My curiosity is piqued when the sights become more interesting. Tables decorated with corpses become beds that house pale, naked bodies. Tubes connect their wrists and chests and heads to bags of fluid and other medical apparatuses that leave me speechless. I lean far enough over one table to get a good look in one of the patient's—victim's?—eyes, and immediately I regret it.

They have to be.

I've never seen eyes like that, even in death so lifeless and hopeless and unmoving—more like ghostly orbs than eyeballs which once saw the world and closed in sleep and devoured the sight of young men or women in their lusting greed.

"They're alive," our guide says, but my hearing is selective and I choose not to listen anymore. It's impossible, I think. Those eyes didn't see me. There was nothing left behind them.

I've never been much for religion, but that's all the proof I need to know that humans don't have souls after all. My lips twitch down at the corners. The realization makes me more uncomfortable than I would have expected, and I really want to be above ground again.

That's when I see him.

I assume at first that it's a figure of my imagination and that the man lying still and asleep beneath the pristine white sheets is only a dream—what I want to see the most in my life but a teasing falsity nonetheless. His bare torso is visible above the neatly folded fabric, diminished but not bony or weak, his shoulders even more broad and strong than I remember them and dashed with just as many freckles. His skin practically glows beneath the torch that burns above his head. Marco was always pale, but now he gleams like porcelain on the bed that seems too filthy for his delicate skin. I am so thankful that, unlike many of the other specimens, his eyes are not open in a hollow stare.

I want to know if he's alive, but I tell myself he's not real and then my stomach lurches up towards my heart again without any real warning. Hitch is holding my hand tightly enough that when I pull away to dry-heave, I drag her with me.

"Jean!" she cries. Her voice rises barely above a horrified whisper, cracking when it leaves her throat, and I wonder if she's been holding her breath all this time.

The contents of my stomach are all back in the Underground rotting along with the decay of the dead, and there's nothing more that my stomach can birth to the world right now. Instead, a slick strand of dribble dangles from my lips. I lick it up with a quick swipe of my tongue and spit it right back out. I need to brush my teeth—this has only reminded me further of the foul taste still lingering on my taste buds.

I ignore Hitch, ignore the officer who is guiding us, and only focus further on the body before me because I want—no _need_ —to know that it's real.

That it's Marco.

It's been fifteen years, but that doesn't mean that I remember my friend any less. No, if anything, I know him more clearly now than I ever did when he was alive. He's always graced my memories and my dreams, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I never make him go. I want him here with me. He's the only thing that's kept my soul alive in this dark, hopeless world and—

His chest rises in a shallow breath. He is alive.

I realize that I need air and turn to run down the aisle so quickly that Hitch is almost dragged down with me.

No. Marco is alive. He's alive and he's _here_ and they're doing who-knows- _what_ to him and I can't see that I can't know that I can’t—

I would almost rather him be dead than know of the monstrosity that the King and the entire government has become, has really been all along. Someone so innocent, with views so idealistic as Marco’s—he shouldn't be forced to live in this world. He would be better elsewhere, even if death is the nothingness I've always expected it to be.

I feel like I have to _hide_ , so I run, as if he will awake at any moment and see me down here, condemn me for what I have become when all I wanted was safety and a comfortable life.

I'm lost. I left the others without a second thought. My mind spins like I'm going crazy and I'm surrounded by all these fucking bodies that are dead or alive or some weird in-between and now they _all_ look like Marco and I need to get the hell out before I pass out down here.

This has to be a nightmare. Only in nightmares does my mouth open in screams I can't hear and my pumping legs carry me nowhere way too fast. I must have taken a wrong turn. There's no sight of the corpses I delivered or the door I entered through. Instead, I'm deeper now, trapping myself in this death, and all I can smell are chemicals and rot.

The room spins. I think I'm falling. It's just Hitch grabbing my shoulders and turning me around.

She's saying something, probably cursing me or apologizing profusely to our guide, but I don't hear her and I don't care. I just want out of the prison full of corpses that are a hundred Marcos staring at me with disappointed eyes and flesh hanging in strings where his lips used to be.

My legs are numb but I make sure they move, and even though nothing looks familiar anymore I soon recognize the pleasant burn in my calves that means I'm treading uphill, back to the world of the living.

All at once, I break free, outside into the rain that's still pouring from the grey sky mottled with fog and clouds. The stinging pelt of every drop on my cheeks is welcome, and I stand in it with arms outstretched, letting the water cleanse me of the blood that I feel is caked on my body as thickly as it was caked on Marco's corpse when I found him in the alley back in Trost—

There's a new sensation on my face, something that stings like the rain at first but then turns hot.

Hitch slapped me.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" she cries. "You'll be eliminated for behavior like that! And you dragged me with you!"

"Didn't have to come," I intone. There's no emotion or anything else in my voice.

"What happened?"

"Marco."

"What?"

"I need a drink."

Hitch shakes her head. She's mad at me, probably mad that the rain is making her bangs stick to her forehead and her clothes cling to her skin. Her brows draw together over her piercing eyes that judge me with every tiny speck in their irises. "Damn right you do. You need a lot more than a drink."

Even though she's yelling and practically causing a scene, I'm still glad when she jogs with me along the muddied cobblestone road towards the pub that the military police frequent much too often. Above ground, here in Stohess amongst a world as normal as I will ever know it, no one recognizes Hitch and me as central police. There is no such thing. We are the military police, bearing the King's insignia on our backs, and that is that.

I wish it really is that simple, like it used to be, when I order my first drink—straight liquor.

One gulp. Two. The alcohol is bitter and burns the back of my throat, but it's been a long time since I've let that stop me from heavy drinking. Having the job I’ve had for a decade and a half does that to people. I must still look sick because the bartender sympathetically offers me a cigarette and a match. He and I know each other by now. The military police drink a lot.

I take it from him gratefully and Hitch helps me light the damn thing because my hands are sure as hell too shaky to do it myself. I'm grateful for the tangy spice of the smoke as it settles on the back of my tongue, and I hold it in my mouth and my lungs a long time before letting the wispy tendrils escape and curl around my lips and nostrils. Another couple of drinks and Hitch's hand rubbing smoothing circles on my thigh at least has me grounded in a few minutes.

When the bartender is content enough that I'm going to be all right and moves on down the bar to clean glasses and serve the other customers who have come in seeking shelter from the shitty weather outside, Hitch pulls herself closer to me and takes the low ball glass from my hand to sip tentatively at the amber liquid sloshing within. I watch her pink tongue swipe over her lips and her slender neck move as she swallows.

"Sleep with me tonight," she urges.

I don't indicate my plans one way or the other. She's really not the one I'm interested in right now.

 _Has she ever been?_ I ask myself.

It's more convenience than emotion. That's how it's always been, ever since this weird thing between us—whatever it is—started a few weeks after we were two of the select group chosen to ascend so highly in the ranks that our new position doesn't even exist in the world known to most. The bartender did still call me captain, didn't he? That's what I'll always be to the citizens, to most of my comrades. The military police I grew up with, drink with, fuck around with. It's a pathetic life.

"I saw someone I know down there," I finally manage to stutter out. I have to inhale a sharp breath between every other word to ensure myself that I'm still breathing. "He was alive."

Hitch blinks. "The one you bent over? Looked at?" Hitch's brows furrow with concern and her hand wraps around mine to help me lift the glass of liquor to my lips. "Finish that, Jean." She calls for another.

I do as she tells me because it's easy and I know that the buzz will be welcome when it settles in, blurry around my brain. There's silence until my second drink is in hand and the last of my cigarette dropped to the floor to sizzle away. She waits until I've withdrawn my lips from the glass before speaking low in my ear.

"There was none of him left. He wasn't alive."

"The _fuck_ do you mean?" I ask. Anger bubbles within me before I realize that she never knew Marco or how he died and therefore can't be making any sort of joke about it.

Her eyes bore into me in belief. "He was _mangled_ ," she whispers. " _Dismembered._ Hell, if it wasn't for the lack of tit on one side I wouldn't even say there was enough left to tell that it was a _he_ at all."

No. This is crazy.

"I _saw_ him breathe, Hitch. He was pale. Sleeping. That woman said some of them were alive, even the ones that looked—"

" _That_ one wasn't."

Her voice is so sharp that I don't even know what to say anymore. Tears prick in her eyes so I must be acting crazy enough that it's upsetting her. I really just want to sleep. I want to sleep, dreamless, and wake up unremembering. The alcohol will help with that, at least, so I drink more. I've definitely chugged my fair share of liquor throughout my life, but I can't remember a time when I've done it with this much desperation. For the first time in years, I find myself wishing that I was outside these damn inner walls, back in Rose or even in the wastelands that once comprised Maria. I want the forests that I know are there, the mountains and the trees with trunks so big around I can't even imagine them. I remember the lake just outside the boundaries of our southern training camp, where the moon would gleam and there was utter silence save for the frogs and the crickets that live in this world safe because titans don't want to eat them.

I want to fly again.

I was good with my gear, once upon a time. I can't say that I possess that talent anymore. I'm way too out of practice.

But it would feel nice now to have nothing else but the wind on my back and the gas propellant to lift me up to the heights where nothing matters and if I fall I die.

"Maybe this was bad for you, Jean."

"No fucking joke," I spit. I notice that my tongue is numb.

I hate myself.

I should have joined the others. I should have joined Eren and fought for something, discovered my purpose and made good use of myself.

But then I wouldn't have found Marco again. I need to see him.

When I snapped at Hitch, my voice must have been louder than I realized. Everyone is looking at me, and I just want _out_. Even the bartender that I'm on friendly terms with curses at me and demands I calm down or else I can leave. That's perfectly fine with me, and I curse him right back, along with everyone else in my line of vision and all their mothers and children, too.

I don't know if I'm seeing double or if there really are four empty glasses on the bar instead of two. How long have I been here and how long has Hitch had her hand on my thigh like some desperate slut, anyway?

Arms wrap themselves around me from both sides and drag me off my stool, but like hell I'm going to go without a fight. I unleash a further string of insults that I hope make at least some sense because I want the whole world and everyone in it to know how much hatred and regret and bitterness I've been holding pent up in my heart. I kick and scream, but I'm only one man against multiple pairs of strong arms that hoist me back outside into the rain that's slowed to a drizzle.

I land in a puddle of mud that dirties my face and mats the longer hair at the crown of my head. A command to "stay the hell out of this bar, Kirschtein" echoes down the street. There aren't many people stupid enough to be out in this weather, but a couple passersby stop and stare. No one offers to help me. I know that my officers will hear about this. I'm wearing my uniform and I've made a fool of myself. Words will be had with me and at the moment I am the farthest from caring about my reputation or the dignity of the military than I have ever been in my life.

The world spins when I push myself to my hands and knees, and my stomach lurches again. I'm getting used to the feeling of vomiting today. I'm sure it will have happened one or two more times before I finally manage to fling myself into bed (sooner rather than later, I hope).

For the first time all day, I'm glad when I feel a smaller hand press into mine. Yeah, of course it's fucking Hitch, but she'll help me home, at least, and maybe even into a clean set of clothes.

"You're losing your mind, Jean," she mumbles, but spares me any more lecture on the journey to the single bedroom apartment I rent above one of the district's smaller bakeries. She fishes the key out of my pocket for me to unlatch the gate and practically drags me up the stairs. She knows where she's going. She's been here before.

Once we're inside, she lights a lantern and works on getting a fire going in my tiny fireplace. Without her support, I'm pretty worthless, and sleeping on the floor seems suddenly like a much better option than it probably actually is. I curl up on the rug in the middle of the room and lay content to let the world spin around me until I fall asleep or someone makes me move again. Now, everything is eerily silent save for the crackling of the flames flickering to life and my own labored breathing.

A nightshirt and pair of pants land beside my face abruptly enough that I startle. "Can you get changed? Or do I have to help you do that, too?"

I'm not _that_ drunk, I think, just confused and lost and scared. A grunt escapes my chapped lips when I sit up, and I only notice how much my hands are trembling when I bend to tug the boots from my feet. One piece at a time, the clothing is removed. Soon, there's nothing left, and I'm fucking naked in front of Hitch and basking in the building warmth that the fire spreads over the small room. It bothers me so much less than it should that I'm completely exposed and helpless in front of this woman who's really not even my girlfriend.

But goddammit, I'm in the military police. We've been trained to not give a fuck. I forgot how to care about dignity and morals a long-ass time ago. My mother wouldn't be proud of me.

Neither would Marco.

I howl with realization again and just fucking want to sleep already rather than remember him anymore. "Bed," I drawl with all the enunciation of a complete fool, and she asks if I want my clothes. I don't care. Nothing has ever meant less to me than the garments on the floor. I don't want anything but the dark oblivion of rest. I want to forget the job I've done today, how I paid for and delivered an infant corpse to my officers for purposes so horrifying that they must be contained three stories beneath the ground. I want to forget the sight I saw, or thought I saw. I want to forget the death of Marco Bodt.

But I can't. I've never been able to. Even before I dream, while I'm lying in bed with the cold sheets raising goosebumps on my naked flesh and Hitch is dragging a wet cloth across my face to clean the dried, cracking mud from my cheeks, I see him. He's there outside of my dreams, waiting for me to fall into slumber so that he can have me to himself, under the full extent of his power. Soon enough, I'm his.

We tumble together in some sort of void, always feeling one another to some capacity, always close but forever separated. He's naked, too, with that goddamned pristine white sheet floating around his torso just like it was back beneath headquarters. He says my name. I say his. And he smiles at me.

With that smile comes something else more horrifying—the skin on his face shrivels a little, pulls tightly across his bones until it's being pulled apart and the pieces are held together by nothing but shreds of wet, crimson flesh. Droplets of pus and fluid burst forth from the spaces where skin used to be and his eyeballs shrink back into his head. There's more bone visible than pale, greying skin, now; but I don't shy away when he comes towards me. Instead, my arms are held out, wide and welcoming in some hopes that this harbinger of death will take me with him so that I don't wake back up to the nightmare of a life I've made for myself. The sweet nothingness of Marco's caress is welcomed, hot and wet. The stench of bloodied, raw meat fills my nose, and something like slimy ivory presses against my forehead.

I realize that his lipless mouth is kissing me, and my eyes fly open.

I don't even notice that my cock is hard until I move, rolling out of bed like a man possessed. I _am_ possessed, I think, though with what I don't know. Regret? Grief? Lust?

Hitch lies curled beneath the now rumpled sheets, unmoving. For a moment, I watch her bare breasts rise and fall with every peaceful breath and god _damn_ how the hell can she manage to sleep so peacefully?

I need Marco.

A low growl of thunder rumbles outside, but I hear no rain pelting the window. If I hurry, I can beat the next round of the storm. It's not a far walk to headquarters, to Marco, but should I go? Abandon Hitch—the only shred of normalcy I may have left in my fucked up life—to chase after some living corpse? I'm not sure if I've ever made a decision so fast.

I stumble back into the main room where the fire has long since died (I'm glad for that, because I feel the dull pounding of an impending headache behind my eyes and I know that I would likely be much too sensitive to the light). My trench coat hangs draped over a chair where the heat of the fire has been drying it through the night with little success. It's still damp to the touch, so I forget it. A cloak will be enough to keep the chill away from my bones—adrenaline will be enough to keep me warm. I tug on the pile of clothes left discarded on the floor, the ones I didn't care to don last night, and am once again painfully aware of the erection tenting my pants.

I can't even deny that it's for Marco, dead and torn and bloodied. I want him.

Dawn hasn't broken. I wonder if it ever will. There's a sense of dread tearing into my chest, but I rush outside into the cold with little regard for my own comfort. Pulling the cloak more tightly around my shoulders does little against the wind, but the chill at least helps wither my erection. As I half-walk and half-jog towards my destination amidst abandoned streets, my boots pounding on muddy, slippery cobblestone, I try not to think how I'm aroused by him.

I love Marco.

How long have I been denying it?

Perhaps it’s more appropriate to ask when I made myself _forget_ that I love him?

It's nothing to be ashamed of, I tell myself, but it _is_. It really fucking is. I shudder at how fucked up I've become to wake up from a dream like that hard and practically leaking in my pants. Ridiculous. Fucking _gross_. I'm not better than the sick fucks I work for now. We're all just the same. Maybe they knew that all along, and that's why I was promoted in the first place. Maybe the only person I've been hiding my twisted tendencies from is myself.

I'm well-recognized enough as a captain of the ranks that when I rush inside, the poor cadets on night watch only salute and don't ask questions. I don't bother to mumble the usual "at ease." They can figure it out themselves when I rush past them without a word. They're trained to not ask questions, just like I was. They will wonder what the hell is wrong with me, but they'll never know. Thankfully, no one else who _does_ have the authority to ask me questions is lingering around.

When I wind my way further inside and descend the staircase that I hauled two dead children down earlier in the day, I'm removing myself from my element, from my safety and familiarity. In the time that it takes for me to struggle down one flight of stairs, clutching at the hand rail for dear life, I have diminished from captain to cadet and I remember my new assignment with a twist of self-loathing in my gut. No longer am I safe. Here, I can be questioned. If someone catches me, I'll be hard-pressed to explain why I'm here. I know I must look like shit, hair like a damp pile of hay atop my head and dark circles beneath too-wide, darting eyes. I don't belong down here at this time of night. I have no authority.

I don't even have my jacket, and this is not a place where I will be recognized out of uniform.

For some reason, none of these things bother me as much as they should. I worry less about being discovered and questioned or punished than I do the possibility of someone interrupting what will be a sacred meeting. I tumble down the dimly-lit halls, try to remember where Hitch led me some hours earlier, and prepare myself for what I know will be a religious experience. I _will_ find him.

Down the sloped floors and towards the rot of death I push myself, but that rot seems less terrifying now than it once did. Earlier, it was the bodies I carried and the job that I completed which defined the putrid scent of death in my nose and made it something unholy. Now, it is Marco which defines the same stench, and I can only describe the experience as something religious or sacred.

That's the door, isn't it?

Of course. It's impossible to forget the place where you tossed down two tiny corpses like nothing but slabs of meat or goods to trade. They have been removed, at least. One less horror to face down here.

Besides my jagged, labored breaths, there is silence. It's hard to believe that there is no one down here, no one to question me or send me away or persecute me for my unholy worship of the freckled corpse in my dreams. Normally, I wouldn't be able to believe my luck, but I'm so crazed that my mind has no room for questions.

I take what I can get, and I get much, much more than I expect.

I don't know what I wanted to see when I propelled myself from bed and back out into this cold, hateful weather and this dungeon, this pit of hell. I don't know if I wanted affirmation that Marco really was dead, like Hitch claimed, or if I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't crazy. I don't know if I wanted him to be alive, haunting, breathing. Maybe I didn't want the body to be Marco at all.

Whatever I want no long matters. It's what I'm truly going to get that makes my hands tremble and my knees weak.

I trip down the aisle now, between the tables and then the beds, but this time I bring only myself to the altar. There is no Hitch. No guide. No other living soul but me and these _things_ that were once people caught between life and death and tubing, nothing but rusted steel and a thin, dirtied pad to serve as their mattresses of rest.

It isn't much farther. I know it can't be. I wouldn't forget the place I saw Marco earlier—the image still sticks in my mind as if it's happening again, right now, in front of me.

And it is.

I see him, all right, and he's everything I always wanted but was never given in my dreams. He's a sore sight, standing out as the only subject in the room lifted from a supine position, sitting up on his table with his knees pulled partially to his chest. I watch the muscles in his face move beneath freckled skin when remnants of confusion and awe shape his expression.

"Marco."

He lifts his gaze from where he has been staring at his hands and arms and the steam curling up from around his torso and from between his fingers.

Steam?

"Jean?"

**Author's Note:**

> All of your feedback is so, so valuable! Thank you for reading! c:


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